The Aera Fellowship is program for exceptional young New Zealanders to work on socially transformative programmes, immersed into the heart of real-world projects designed to help causes and companies improve the wellbeing of people and our planet in imaginative ways. Assignments range from working on social advocacy campaigns to helping emerging social ventures advance their ideas.

Today there are many company internships, volunteer openings and short-term ‘work experience’; but there are fewer opportunities available to respond to the growing moral awareness and desire by incoming generations of contributing towards a bigger purpose and having a positive social impact. The Aera Fellowship is designed to intervene at the intersection of where young people are leaving school and starting on their next journey to help accelerate their thinking and understanding of how they can contribute to the world at large and what their unique role in it might be. One of the key goals of being an Aera Fellow is to help prepare one to be best equipped to create a life of value, significance and meaning to them. Read more about the three inaugural Aera Fellows in the August 2016 Metro Magazine.

What is it Like ?

Aera Fellows are thrown into the thick of real world situations, real projects in development and genuine organisational requirements. It’s designed to be a challenging opportunity to extend oneself in new ways and be immersed in real-world learning experiences far ahead of what may be expected at this stage in their lives.

The Aera Fellowship is an organic experiment that aspires to have a meaningful impact on both the recipients and the future of New Zealand through building a sustained, unifying network of passionate, talented shapers of the future. Fellows will be dropped into experiences to support new concept development at the Aera Foundation or support existing organisations and campaigns. In some cases, Fellows will be offered the opportunity for full accountability for particular team roles, such as planning, administration or communication.

There are only three guaranteed aspects of the experience for Aera Fellows:1. The experience will constantly vary, never identical for any two Fellows2. All projects and experiences will ‘hit the ground running’, contributing to real-world projects and challenges in real-time - be they activism campaigns, start-ups, product concepts, advocacy or research and creative exploration of new ideas.3. Aligned with the Aera Foundation’s aspirations, a mission of social innovation for the wellbeing of people and our planet will underpin all assignments. Everything you experience will in some way be related to a desire for improving the state of the world for our generation.